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Members of the association Yazidis in France take part in a sit-in and hold placards reading 'Thousands of captive Yazidi children are undergoing Jihadist brainwash' and '74th Yazidi genocide perpetrated by the Islamists' on the esplanade of the Trocadero in Paris on August 2, 2015, in remembrance of the massacre perpetrated by Islamic State jihadists against the small Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority in Iraq in August 2014. In 2014, the jihadists massacred Yazidis, forced tens of thousands of them to flee, captured thousands of girls and women as spoils of war and used them as sex slaves. The UN has said the atrocities committed against the small community may amount to genocide. Yazidis follow a faith born in Mesopotamia more than 4,000 years ago. It is rooted in Zoroastrianism but has over time blended in elements of Islam and Christianity. Yazidis pray to God three times a day facing the sun and worship his seven angels -- the most important of which is Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel. AFP PHOTO / JACQUES DEMARTHONJACQUES DEMARTHON/AFP/Getty Images